Over at dKos, in the process of discussing Carter’s recent book, the all-too-common dismissals of Jimmy Carter were popping up. In an excellent essay outlining Carter’s achievements, the author makes a point worth repeating:
But I do worry about us as Democrats. I worry what it means that we should constantly allow a man who has given his life over to the ideals of honesty, decency, and hard work to be constantly derided. The Republicans took on the elevation of Ronald Reagan as a kind of public works project, laboring decades to erase the real man and build the myth that’s worshiped today in the public square. Why are we so reticent in pushing forward a man who is everything Reagan claimed to be. And intelligent. And thoughtful. And who, yes, turned his post-presidential career into a continuation of his own good work rather than taking it as an opportunity to line his pocket with lucrative speaking engagements.
I don’t ever want to engage in anything (for any man) that approaches the GOP deification of Reagan, but I do think that it’s a goddamn shame that many Democrats, nevermind the nation at large, fail to give Carter his due.